Entrants are understood to include Beretta’s APX, Ceská zbrojovka’s CZ P-09, FN Herstal’s Five-Seven Mk 2, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GDOTS) and Smith & Wesson’s M&P polymer handgun; the Glock 17 and 22; and Sig Sauer’s P320. However, sources informed IHS Jane’s that the DoD had yet to make a final decision regarding calibre of the MHS, although 9×19 mm and .40 calibre appear to be favourites at the moment.

It is interesting to note the dominance of striker-fired handguns in the list--among the pistols listed above, only the CZ uses a traditional hammer design. FN's Five-Seven would be a good choice and certainly give the military an advanced cartridge that will probably better meet the criteria laid down (the terminal ballistics look to be good, the ability to penetrate body armor is better, and, theoretically, the bottle-neck casing should make the weapon more reliable than straight walled cartridges like the .40 S&W or 9 mm*), but I doubt that the military will adopt a different caliber because of their current stocks of 9 mm. While Glock may make it to the final 3, I doubt that Glock will be the final choice because the military likes manual safeties. I hope they don't select .40 S&W because it will be a complete mess, and they will be back looking for a lighter recoiling weapon within a few years.

* I understand the 9 mm is not technically straight-walled, but close enough for the purposes of my comments.

The newest data from the Census Bureau show a surge in total immigration over the past two years. In 2014 and 2015, 3.1 million new foreign-born people moved here, or about 1.5 million per year. This is up from the 2.3 million in the prior two-year period, and 2.1 million in 2010–2011.

Of the 3.1 million who immigrated over the past two years, about a third were illegal aliens — about 550,000 per year (up from 350,000 illegals entering per year in 2012–13). Two-thirds, or 1 million a year, were legal, up from about 750,000 a year in the prior two-year period.

Immigration officials have identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.” He is in custody, but The Times is withholding his name at the request of law enforcement to protect investigations.

(For the record, I don't believe that Trump even cares about "white identity" politics and does not want to be the "leader" of "white identity" politics; his campaign has been focused on reaching out to those voters who feel disenfranchised by Washington insiders; that that group may be mostly comprised of white voters speaks more of the failure of the political establishment than Trump's views on race. Articles of this type from the likes of Deher and Frum strike me more as attempts to shame people into not voting for Trump. Nevertheless, Deher makes a few valid observations).

Deher takes the position, however, that rather than leading the change, Trump is merely taking advantage of a political sea-change wrought by the current political establishment and special interests. Deher writes:

... For a very long time, much liberal rhetoric has been focused on left-wing identity politics, not appealing to what unifies us as Americans, but on our tribal divisions. But they call identifying and exacerbating difference “diversity,” and claim it as a virtue. Until whites start seeing themselves in the same way left-liberalism has taught blacks, Hispanics, gays and others to see themselves: as one tribe among many.

Yes, Trump’s rise, and his rise as a white identity candidate, is frightening. But he didn’t come from nowhere, nor is he solely the creation of conservatism (indeed, he’s barely a conservative at all). I expect Hillary Clinton to use a lot of unity rhetoric this fall. But here’s the thing: if she wins, I fully expect her to govern as someone who treats my own tribe — conservative Christians — as the enemy. ...

The point is that the nation is fractured and fracturing. Both political parties have benefited from the ideological divide they have created, and that historical circumstances have created. What’s new about Trump is that for the first time, many whites are seeing themselves the way Democrats and the liberal media have encouraged blacks, Hispanics, and gays to see themselves: as a tribe.

That particular guardrail was being dismantled long before Trump ever thought about running for president. It didn’t take much to push it over. Only audacity, really.

This collapse promises to be quite different from everything that has come in the past. The Great Depression was harsh, and obviously the K-ifying effects on psychology produced WWII.

Yet during the Depression, we did not have the Bloods, Crips, MS-13, and other violent street gangs in America. We did not have high capacity semi-autos in the large numbers we do today, dispersed throughout the populace. We did not have a massive welfare class with IQs which virtually preempt any possibility of survival through normal, civilized means in a K-selected environment. Cocaine, heroin, meth, and other opioids were virtually unheard of. We did not have Big Agra, which if it collapses, could take much of the food supply with it overnight. We did not have outright foreigners in our nation who view America as a foreign nation. We did not have large numbers of Islamics, prone to in-group and view all outsiders as infidels deserving of death. Blacks during the Depression were family oriented, and would have been scornful of single-motherhood, or attacks on police officers. We did not have the internet, facilitating flash mobs that can materialize and evaporate in moments. Criminals would not have had access to the plethora of technology available today, from communications gear, NV gear, weapons, and vast intelligence on targets available online, to manuals and tutorials on YouTube, for all sorts of skills criminals might need for complex jobs.

In short, when this collapse hits, it is not impossible we will see the rough equivalent of hundreds of thousands of of non-ideological civil wars erupting simultaneously all over the nation, as all sorts of people are driven to violent action for a myriad of reasons, from ancient programmed revulsions at the sight of those who are different, to religious ideologies, to simple desperate desires to acquire the food needed to survive.

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